Ah! Back to the basic time crunch for every student... the week before report cards. This week is bound to be one of the most hectic of all the school weeks in the semester. Students will run around as if their heads are cut off, frantically shoving papers at teachers for the points needed to raise them that extra grade. This is the time where students are the most desperate. Any extra credit they can squeeze out of teachers, they will pump out like boa constrictors. I feel bad for the teachers more than the students. Sitting at those lonely desks for hours at a time while students run past them at lightning speed just longing to pass the class with any grade higher than what they have now. They must feel so neglected.

Can't say I'm not one of those teens. Let's get real, everyone at some point is one. That sad freshmen crying in the corner because his parents are going to kill him for the impending doom that is report cards, or that insanely perky senior who struts though the hall with pride wearing her grades on her shirt like Superman. The kid everyone wants to jump... but won't because then I will get in trouble for saying it and instigating it.

The grades students get show one of two things: 1) how hard they really did work or 2) how much extra credit and late work they turned in; and I have been on both sides of the spectrum. I am either calm that I did what I needed to and will pass with a good grade or I am running around begging any teacher I can for that one extra assignment to bump me from one grade bracket to another. Sad, but the truth.

I would love to be considered the smartest of the smart or the brainiac of my bunch of friends but seriously that's not why I work the way I do. I work hard for the pride. To see my mom say, "It's about time," or my Nana (grandfather) tell me that I am the best. Those little ego boosts and the idea that my dreams can ONLY come true with an education, are why I am constantly stressing and killing myself for the grade. I know, I sound like your parents preaching about the importance of an education... Even celebrities, like JayZ have the silent backgrounds of degrees to fall back on if they fall off the face of the popular planet. SHOCKER! Now let's think, did the grades that got these people the degrees come from hard work or late work?

These are the questions that haunt me. The moral of this story is that not everything that is achieved is by hard work, some are received by just doing the job. Late or not. But will this get you anywhere in life?